Reply To: Breach in Tznius: Recent affliction attacking Klal Yisroel

Minhag Yisroel K’Halacha.

Please note: Not everything a community does creates a Minhag. Minhag is Halachicly binding and there are Halachic guidelines for what constitutes a Minhag. Saying davening in a certain nusach is a minhag; not eating kitnoyos on Pesach is a Minhag; certain tznius requirements are binding by Minhag. If a community in general doesn’t consider denim skirts tzniusdik, that does not become a Minhag. Also, not every cluster of people who decide to do something in tandem constitue a “community” such that they can create a Minhag even if they wanted to. If your clique of 6 girls decides not to wear green because its not tzniusdik (lets say), it does not mean that suddnely there is a binding Minhag on you and your children not to wear green the way you and your children are not allowed to eat Kitniyos on Pesach. It doesnt even mean youre not allowed to wear green because a group of girls dont like it.

There is no Minhag anywhere not to wear denim. You can call it a community “hanhaga” if you want, which means nothing more then “they do this,” youre just saying it in Hebrew.

That having been said, not everything that is not tzniusdik can be included in a metrics that involve inches or collarbones or denim, and the Halacha itself demands more than something that can be measured like a KaZayis. Anything that will attract attention of males is not tzniusdik.

There are a great many standards of Tznius, and many levels, and just as you cannot quanitfy in a formula what makes a person an “ehrliche yid”, since there are so mnay relative levels of ehrlichkeit, so too there are many different levels of Tznius.

And so, although I would be wrong if I told you that wearing denim is assur al pi din, it is certain that those communities where it is unacceptable to do so are not merely following their Minhag like davening nusach sefard, but rather they are simply holding to a higher standard of Tznius. Is this standard obligatory? Will you go to gehennom if yuo don’t maintain such a standard? No, I am not saying that. But if you do live in a community that maintains such a standard you get credit for that higher standard.

If you live in a community that does not maintain that standard but you do, you get even more credit.

And if you live in a community that maintains that standard, then if you don’t, you are in fact standing out in the crowd, and that itself makes your actions less tzniusdik. However, its still not violating a Minhag.

There are some things, such as wearing transparent stockings, that the majority of Poskim prohibit halachicly but is widely done in many communities. Regarding such things, as a general rule, you should follow the majority of Poskim regardless of what your community does. There are times, however, that it becomes more halachicly complex than this.

Unless you are a talmid chacham, or heard the specifics from one, you should not assume that any given tzniusdik behavior, whether practiced by all or some or many or few communities, is a Minhag, a Halachah, a plain good thing to do, or whatever.

And there are plenty of halachic requirements that communities collectively violate. You should also not assume that just because there are communities that act a certian way, that that makes it right.